Are property investment courses worth the money?

At Aston Eaves, we believe that investing in education is crucial to aiding your success – whether it is property investment projects, investing in shares, developing your career and so on. We have colleagues and friends that have jumped feet in without too much thought and have, for the most part, endured some difficulty in getting to where they intended to. So the question is: Should you invest in property investment courses before you begin your property investment journey?

Well, in our opinion, the answer is not a straight yes or no. Whilst we believe that educating yourself in your property investment aims are fundamental underpinning to your long term success, how and where that education comes from is an even more important question to ask. The questions you should ask include the following:

Some courses that are being bandied about can be heavy with the sales pitch and hype during the ‘free seminars’ with view to tying you into a paid for course where ‘all the secrets will be revealed’. Clever usage of psychological techniques and the right buzzwords can tempt even the most suspecting of investors, so it’s good to have your guard up at these type of events and even better advice is to leave your wallet at home(!)

Surely the property investment course provider is responsible for the outcome?

The onus is on the student to take the information on board and to implement the techniques provided. Not just to read and ponder, but to act on the information and put theory into practice. If this isn’t done, then one cannot be in a position to critique the respective elements of the course.

Spurious claims of being able to achieve X without Y really need to be backed up by such property course providing companies and it must be said that whilst there could be success and a rags-to-riches story, what you don’t often hear about is the ones that have not made it. Taking an extreme and simplistic example, with the national lottery, you will hear about the one or two lottery winners and what they intend on doing with their lives and how their life has been transformed. What doesn’t sell the newspapers is the millions of individuals that lose money every single week. The same must be applied and heavily stated and each potential student should be told that such risky endeavours will only make a success of one or two; the others will probably not make it. We believe that such information is not relayed as it doesn’t sell the courses. To be fair, the onus is on the student to be sure of themselves before they even register for any property investment courses and accept that they may not be as successful as others.

If you are going to jump in and attend one of these property investment courses, then the first thing you need to ask is: Do I have the money to invest in property? That sounds like a silly question, but we have come across a good number of investors who have invested  thousands in property investment courses and property seminars, but at the end of it, they have very little to no money left to invest in property. It really can be as bad as that, but if you do not have the money to be investing in property, then you really really should not be investing in UK property investment courses or UK property seminars. Sorry to say that, but it’s the harsh truth.

The alternative to property investment course?

Free to download property investment guides are available across the internet – read them, digest them and compare them. See what one company has to offer compared to another. Compare what the company offers in a  particular area compared to what’s available in the open market and see if what they’re offering is anything special.

Investment property forums – Read, read and read away. There are some good property investment forums available for free on the internet and some specialist groups that discuss the latest ongoings through social networking forums. Almost all of them are free to register with and wealth of information is available through these forums. Read as much as you can and take it all in.

Property investment books – there are so many books that have been published in the last decade in relation to property investment tips and strategies, that it just takes a quick search on Amazon to find some of the more popular ones. Bear in mind that the property market has evolved in the last 10 years or so, which means that information that was applicable in 2004 may not be relevant in 2014. The groundings may be the same, but the exact information may have changed.

Property investor news – Your best friend online, Google, will come up with news and press releases of what is happening right now in property investment. Find out which companies are in trouble and why, which developments have started, which developments haven’t and so on. Staying abreast of what is going on real time will give you an starting point as to what the experts may be referring to.

So in short, there really are no property secrets, it’s just a case of doing it and making sure the numbers work as it is. The future will look after itself, but if the numbers work today, then there’s nothing really you can do for the variables that arise tomorrow.

As a final point, this post is completely our opinion and should not be taken as legal advice in any form whether it’s about property investment courses or property seminars in the UK. Feel free to comment below or get in touch with us using the contact page.